Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Oct. 4th Book Launch, Video Release and Community Discussion

Rosencrantz Comics, the graphic novel
imprint of Bayeux Arts, is pleased to announce the release of My Modern Panic: Short Stories by James
Davidge with art by Nick Johnson, Eric Jordan, Ben Leung,Nathan Millar, Judd Palmer, Bob Prodor and Fiona
Staples.

To celebrate the release there will be a
launch at Shelf Life Books in Calgary (1302 – 4 St. SW) on October 4th
at 7:30 pm.The event will include the
premiere of “Kill all the Artists”, the second Cowpuncher music video to feature a My Modern Panic story by James
Davidge and Fiona Staples.There will
also be a community discussion on “Activism and the Arts” with special guests Xstine Cook (Bluebird short film), Col
Ceske (Verb Theatre), Beth Ed (Alberta Views Magazine) and Sharon
Stevens (essense.ca).

Author James Davidge (Thirteen Minutes, Mathemagick &
Mystiphysics, The Driftwood Saga) collaborates with a brilliant and
diverse group of illustrators to produce a playful
yet socially-concerned set of stories. What if the upper class
of society started to collect and display the homeless as art? Could a
sustainable farm be built on a defunct off-shore oil rig by utilizing
guidance and funding from a talking goldfish? Can Davidge reconcile
with his own youthful sins of pulling the hair of a girl he liked, taunting
someone entirely undeserving and abandoning one of his best friends?
Journey with ancient alchemist Hermes Trismegestus as he
poetically presents these absurd tales of heart, humour and
woe. Featuring two stories with art
by Eisner nominee and Shuster Award winner Fiona Staples!

“[Davidge has]…taken one of the most beloved and accessible
popular arts, the multi-story comic book, and pointed its tricks and tropes at
a range of modern panics: catastrophic climate change, endemic poverty, oil
dependency and ecological decline. Framing these varied dreamscapes with a
nifty homage to the classic EC horror comics of the 1950s, Davidge suggests a
novel way of confronting and dispelling the nightmares of our day – he turns
them into ghost stories and fables, tales of dark horror that can be overcome
by an enlightened mind.”

-From the
introduction by Calgary Centre Green Party Candidate Chris Turner (The Leap, The Geography of Hope)